starting a forum

[Ben's mum]

I work for a local charity supporting people who have had a stroke and their carers. For ages I have wanted to start a small forum similar in style to COL but haven't got a clue where to start as I am not very technical
Is there an 'idiots' guide or do you know how much it would cost the charity to employ someone to start somthing similar but on a very small scale.

Having clearly defined sections for each subject, eg health questions, medical information, prevention advice, support for carers etc etc would make it easy for someone with cognitive or language problems from their stroke to navigate round the site.  I also love the way people on COL support and help each other and for some of my group members who are quite isolated it would be an enormous help to have company online. 

So any ideas or advice about how to start would be gratefully recieved 

[JohnMcL7]

It depends on how complex the forum is going to be, there's quite a few sites out there that make it reasonably easy to set up a forum and it doesn't cost anything if you don't mind a few ads.  Customisation tends to be limited so it can be a bit restrictive if you want a lot of control over layout, plugins and functionality but from what you've said I think something like that would be fine.  The only other issue is if you wanted to migrate to different forum system it may not be possible or straightforward, you'd probably only need that if the forum grew particularly large, if you make the right choice in the first instance it shouldn't be a problem. 

A dedicated server like Cockers Online would be much more complex to set up and maintain but has the advantage of much more control and customisation.

John

[Ben's mum]

Thanks for the information its helpful and tells me that I need to get some help to get it right first time rather than 'having a go' myself and perhaps then needing to change things later if it takes off

thank you 

[JohnMcL7]

Well, I'd say it doesn't hurt to try setting up a free forum and have a play with the options to get a feel for what you would like and then when you start properly you have a better idea.  Just in terms of forum structure, colour schemes etc.

John

[Mel]

phpBB forums are free and very versatile.